I hear ya. The little bastards piss me off as well. That's what they want. Having gone through one and working on another teenager kiddo of mine also helps. Talk about annoying little shits (not really, love my kids).
If there's one single cut that I would throw into this discussion that prove a white guy can really sing blues, it would be a cut that nobody on this forum has ever heard: Ronnie Milsap's "Truth is, I've Been Known to Lie." Please check it out and report back.
But of course there are lots of other examples: Gregg Allman, Tab Benoit, Bonnie Raitt (please: let's not be sexist here), Kelsey Grammer...
Yes, Kelsey Grammer is a terrific jazz-blues singer.
htownfess is right on. Please reread his first couple of paragraphs. He speaks truth. Alan Lomax had his own agenda. Remember: he almost started a riot at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 when Bob Dylan plugged in. He hated amplfied blues. He was one of the crew who thought that B. B. King was RUINING the blues! Would you really trust him to adjudicate this sort of question?
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2010 8:36 PM
Here you go EV. I've only listened to the first 30 seconds of this one, but I've seen him live and I know what I saw. Tab Benoit is a white guy who can sing and play the blues, honestly, effortlessly, without a fake note of any sort:
Go to Paul Oscher's web site and play the jukebox. Deep blues, no doubt.
For deep soul, Steve Winwood is close to the top, although he is certainly not a great blues singer by any means.
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2010 9:35 PM
Alan Lomax deserves credit for finding obscure blues singers and recording them for the Library of Congress. But he had his own political agenda. He tried to draw blues music along racial and socioeconomic and cultural lines. He was left-wing politically and tried to politicize the blues, a music that was not overtly political. Some of his folk-blues "discoveries" like Leadbelly, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry and Josh White became favorites of the NYC left-wing intelligentsia. Lomax lived a long life and died only a few years ago and I don't think he ever changed his attitude so what he said about blues music should be taken with however many grains of salt one wishes.
There's some good picks here: Jeff Healey and Guy F. are all verve!!! Guy is like a little boy at his shows-exfoliating in all musical directions. And these guys don't need our validation. It's in their blood, hearts, and souls! Good picks. d ---------- Myspace: dennis moriarty
Tab and Tad smoke up there too. Bonnie as both a kid and a woman has done nothing but arrest my ears and make me smile when she plays her heart which has always been the blues in earnest with a capital E. ---------- Myspace: dennis moriarty
well. this really took off. the topic of race will do that. i mentioned singer/harp player favs and we got janis joplin. no matter. unfortunately i have to take the unpopular side of Ev630 and risk reverse racism charges. even the cream of the white blues harp playing singers can't match up to black counterparts in timbre, tonality, phrasing, and just plain chickenskin delivery. i really like a lot of the white dudes, like darrel nulich. a black harp player in PA said to me,and i agree,"rick estrin doesn't sound black; he rocks the house, but doesn't sound black" but...sugar blue sometimes sounds like one of the ford brothers to my ears. perhaps lomax statement holds water.
I dont think color has anything to do with what kind of music one is able to sing. Soul is either in you or it isnt... There arent enough classes in the world anyone can ever take to get this stuff... Ive got it (a good part of it) as it relates to soul, but blues?, Im learning fast, and if I can, Ill show you bit at HCH...
I don't think you have to sound "black" to sing the blues. Do you have to sound "english" to sing punk ? Or jamaican to sing reggae ?
For Janis Joplin, I maintain she was a great blues singer. And the fact she sang the blues in a way nobody else did participates to her greatness. But it's all a matter of taste.
I think that each has their place and merits and contibutes equally to the blues. I mean just think about Norton Buffalo (RIP) and Roy Rogers, Jason Ricci, Charlie Musselwhite for sure, Even the vocalists like George Thorogood all contribute to their version of blues. Even Clapton who has never claimed to be vocalist, except for the fact that noone else would sing, has contributed greatly to blues vocals. Man there are so many great white blues vocalists. Again, A matter of personal tastes.
I do know that this....
"..dave chappel believes whites can dance and pasty women are prone to take off their tops as long as there is an electric guitar"
..is the truth.
Get a bunch of inebriated ladies in a bar during a good set of southern rock then get the lone strat to start the Sweet Home Alabama lick and keep your eyes open.
Been there, seen it..... Yeah man. ---------- "Keep it in your mouth" - XHarp
we all have the blues. That is part of life. Life is hard. White people can play and sing the blues but where I find it offensive is when I a white guy with a white voice, tries to sound black. That is not only embarrassing, but will ruin your voice. Look at Joe Cocker and Rod Steward. They sing so unnatural that their vocals are pretty much shot. Sing in your normal voice, sing about what is in your life, and do it from your heart, and you got a right to sing the blues and you will still be able to sing when you hit 60! Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
"The two best proponents in my mind would be Van Morrison, and Joe Cocker. But they still do not hold a candle to Muddy, Junior etc." Whilst I take the spirit of your post as it was meant, really, comparisons like this are pretty nonsensical because they cut both ways (who's the black Mario Lanza?) and, just like there aren't whole bunch of white guys who sound like Van (or more pertinently, like he used to) or Joe, there equally weren't/aren't a whole bunch of black guys who sound like Mud or Jr...all these guys mentioned are individuals and should be treated as such...Mud didn't sound like Wolf, who didn't sound like JB Lenoir, who didn't sound like Otis Rush...etc, etc...
Whilst Van & Joe obviously love the blues & draw from it, neither seems to regards themselves as a blues singer.
Vocal chops is perhaps a different subject...
I know I keep dragging this thread OT slightly, away from blues but singers like Bobby Charles & Charlie Rich had nothing "missing" in their voices & were mistaken for black singers, equally only a fool would suggest that Charlie Pride couldn't sing country.
HARP PLAYING SINGERS. this is the group i was thinking of. my personal fav is duke robbilard (check out his swing album) but i'm talking HARP PLAYER/SINGERS.
Did I overlook it? Did anyone mention Curtis Salgado? If you've not seen this guy live, you're really missing something. I really think he pretty much puts to rest the notion that white guys can't sing the blues.
when i started out singing i was aping paul buterfield. i should have been modeling my style(iv'e changed) after little milton, bobby bland, otis rush, bb king, and the wonderfully expressive buddy guy. if you're a harp player thinking of singing blues, it is a good idea to use the finest singers as a template, just as using the best harp players as a template is the way to go. if you fall short of your almost unatainable goal, you have probably still achieved a hell of a lot. shoot high!!!
Gotta agree with Curtis, he is awesome I hatotally forgotten about him.
5FH6 - my example was that the two best white guys I could think of were not as good as the best black guys I could think of. I agree that, Muddy, Wolf et all are very different, but they are all good!
The original statement is an obvious generalisation, but it is pretty accurate, to my mind anyway. There are very few white men who rank as great blues singers, but there are lots of black men.
As I said before this is just my humble opinion, based on my own taste.
No animosity here, I don't get dragged into arguments based upon opinion, they are non-sensical as it is all personal taste.
Curtis Salgado sings on 2 and 4, plays great harmonica and puts the boots to this whole question. But why do we keep having to do this subject over and over. God inspires music and he does it more in some than others. Some people study the blues form and "nail it" some care less and it shows. Open up your heart and quit trying to own or "assign" absolutes to one group or another. Blues was created by blacks (a crowning achievement that's brought tremendous pleasure to the whole world). White people came up with electricity for Pete's sake. Does that mean black people have no real gift for turning on a lamp? No, it means that all of us should enjoy and benefit from the things people come up with regardless of color. When we finally get around to thinking "A man or woman like me came up with blues or electricity" we'll be further down the road we SHOULD all be walking together as people, instead of wasting time by riffing on names and colors.
what waltertore said is right on the money! it is and was common for singers back in the 60's to try and sound black ( rod stewart, etc) but it sounds so forced and unnatural , and yes white men can sing the blues but it will always be different , and there's nothing wrong with it . take eric burdon from the animals , he had his own voice that worked , also stevie winwood. but it also comes to the band as a whole to sound convincing and that is where a lot of white blues bands don't understand the rhythm as well as they could if only they counted properly! as Barbequebob rightly points out , to make it sound right it has to be on the back beat ( counts 2 and 4 , not 1 and 3) i listened to the free cd from my guiatrist mag yesterday with their blues section on tips and nearly every time they are on the 1 and 3 and it makes it sound like a bad pub band blues! the legends of 50's and 60's blues always held a real respect for the english blues bands because without them , we all probably wouldn't be having this discussion .
This seems like a discussion like that of older days on if gentiles (goys) can play basketball. In the beginning of pro basketball, Jews made up the roster. They were the ones who were in the inner city and all picked up the sport from a young age.
When I was a kid and did choir in newly desegregated schools, we had some black kids who could sing. I mean we did stuff as back up with them doing the solos (like oh happy day) and it sent chills up my spine. They had the background and were doing things like I never heard. They were way better singers, but was it just where they came from and influences?
Biological/cultural? Nature/nurture? an age old question that will never be answered.
Anyone have a reference for the Lomax quote? What year was it?
I suspect the key is the first two words on the thread. "Years ago". It may well have been a truism back when white people were not exposed to black culture in the way that they are today.
Last Edited by on Mar 16, 2010 5:41 AM
"HARP PLAYING SINGERS. this is the group i was thinking of." There's harp players who sing that I like for one, or the other (harp or voice)...but for a harp playing singer, I guess I have to pretty well bias towards the voice at the expense of the harp, but for guys who strike a nice balance to me...
Darrell Nulisch, Little George Sueref, another vote for Paul Oscher, RJ Mischo, John Nemeth (even if he strikes me more as a soul/RnB/Americana singer who also plays blues well)...
htownfess-I listened to the ones on youtube(there are only a few), he was okay, a bit like William Clarke, and not even close to the best black singers.
"htownfess-I listened to the ones on youtube(there are only a few), he was okay, a bit like William Clarke, and not even close to the best black singers."
I can't find much in common between Dardar & Clarke vocally...or in any other context...it seems like a strange comparison to me.
It's also worth noting that the best black singers are the best of the guys that originated & propogated the form, before it crossed over & many white Americans even heard that music...they rightly deserve their place, but not all were of that standard. Many of the greats & their peers are now gone with few successors from the same background (indeed the world that Mud, Wolf etc were raised in is much changed today...does that background even exist any more?). Today, there are excellent & convincing singers of blues from varied ethnic backgrounds, who can hold their own...who knows what's yet to come. Comparing guys who may still be developing to passed icons, whose unassailable postion is assured, is a pretty safe bet, if a rather narrow view.
sorry username, can't find reference for lomax quote. and adam, i think you mean pete seeger and the axe deal,not lomax-i could be wrong. lomax did get into a fistfight with albert grossman but i don't think that would almost incite a riot. would one trust lomax to adjudicate on this sort of question? i don't think so, but like fora tv...'the world is thinking'.
In the spirit of some of the rancor the MBH forum has been recently experiencing, by all means, let's resurrect this thread from 2010.
Last Edited by on Feb 18, 2012 4:49 AM
All I can say is THANK YOU Kieth R for reviving this post. I've spend a good chunk of my Saturday morning listing to some awesome music that I might not have found otherwise. I never heard of half of these guys. I guess it is time for me to buy some more music.
Thanks CaptainBolide, for the Joseph Campbell reference. I read Campbell's words and they are very interesting - even if I remain unmoved by the work of the Grateful Dead. Maybe I should give it another shot.
As for superb white blues singers, whether physically still with us or not, I nominate Lester Butler, Darrell Nulisch, Ray Norcia, Sean Costello, Peter Green (in his 1967-70 heyday), Bonnie Raitt, Curtis Salgado, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mooney, James Hunter, Susan Tedeschi, Duster Bennett, James Harman, Kim Wilson, the young Steve Winwood, John Hammond (I saw him ten years ago and he was really laying it down both vocally and with his harp), Eric Burdon, Billy Gibbons, Jimmie Vaughan, Paul Butterfield, Tad Robinson and Sun Records-era Elvis Presley.
But not Hugh Laurie.
Oh, and when John Lee Hooker appeared on the British radio programme 'Desert Island Discs', he said: "Blues ain't got no colour". I still have a recording of it.
Last Edited by on Feb 19, 2012 5:55 AM
">